The Leader's Own Mind: Cognitive Offloading, Power, Loneliness and Wellbeing

All courses / AI Leader / Module 6 / Chapter 28

Learning objectives

After the lesson the participant can:

• Distinguish cognitive offloading from overreliance and state the conditions under which the second arises.
• Explain why the assistant as confidant is described as the sharpest risk, with the three bodies of evidence and their limits.
• Draft a practice plan with first views, dark days, independent sources and a partner who holds a dated record.
• Explain why logs of a leader's assistant use are not a measure of the leader's mind.

Key concepts

Cognitive offloading

In Risko and Gilbert's definition, the use of physical action to alter the information-processing requirements of a task so as to reduce cognitive demand. It is not a pathology: a notebook, a calendar and a secretary are offloading.

Overreliance

Offloading becomes overreliance when the person stops checking what is offloaded. Complacency occurs under multiple-task load, which is the leader's ordinary condition, and both complacency and automation bias occur in experts as well as novices.

The assistant as confidant

Three findings meet: greater power is associated with less advice taking through confidence; assistants trained with human feedback tend to agree with the user; and people prefer and trust the agreeing answer. The combination is the book's own inference.

First view

Before opening the briefing on a consequential decision, the leader writes ten lines or fewer: the choice leaned towards, the two facts it rests on and what would change their mind. It is filed with the decision record and not shown to the assistant.

Dark day

A scheduled period in which the leader works with the assistants off, reads a sample of sources and exercises the independent channels. With first views it forms a practice plan whose record is held by a partner with standing to disagree.

Interactive exercises

Do them here and get feedback at once. Choose a card and then where it belongs, or drag it.

Teaching plan

Discussion

1. In one experiment, interaction with a sycophantic model increased conviction of being in the right and participants rated those responses higher in quality. What does that imply for a senior leader who tests an argument alone with an assistant?
2. Hansa's chief executive is paired with the chair of the supervisory board, who is a supervisor and not a peer. What does that choice cost, and what does it gain compared with a peer partner?
3. The plan's measures are counts of practice, and the partner does not read assistant usage logs or performance ratings. Why does the chapter draw that line?

Written exercise

Self-test

Choose an answer to see whether it is right, or open the answer below each question.

1. What did the one study on loneliness that the chapter could open find about managers?

   1. Managers were markedly lonelier than non-managers at every level
   2. Loneliness rose with each step in seniority up to the chief executive
   3. Managers who used assistants reported less loneliness than those who did not
   4. Loneliness did not differ by managerial status
   Show the answer

   D. Loneliness did not differ by managerial status
   Wright's three studies found managers no more and no less lonely than non-managers. They predate broad AI use, and the chapter takes them as a reason not to assume every leader is isolated.

2. What did See and colleagues find about power and advice?

   1. Higher power led to more advice taking, because powerful people have more advisers within reach to draw on
   2. Power and advice taking were negatively related, mediated by confidence in one's own judgement
   3. Power had no relation to advice taking once expertise was controlled
   4. Lower-power participants were less accurate in their final judgements
   Show the answer

   B. Power and advice taking were negatively related, mediated by confidence in one's own judgement
   Across four studies, more power meant less advice taking through greater confidence, and in the last study higher-power participants were less accurate. Combined with agreeable assistants, this is the chapter's sharpest risk.

3. On which decisions does the chapter say the first view applies?

   1. Decision classes where the leader's judgement is the substance, such as strategic, risk and people decisions
   2. Every decision the leader signs, including each purchase approval
   3. Only decisions that have been delegated at Level 3 Bounded
   4. Only decisions on which the board has asked for an explanation
   Show the answer

   A. Decision classes where the leader's judgement is the substance, such as strategic, risk and people decisions
   The first view costs ten to fifteen minutes and rehearses the Explain test. It is reserved for the classes where judgement is the substance and is not required for every routine approval.